Podcasts about Critical Inquiry

We can show you the world…of the pervasive colonialism in nostalgic Disney movies! In this episode, Marcelle and Hannah talk all about the Disney classic Aladdin. With the help of Abdul JanMohamed's manichean allegory—an aspect of Orientalist literature—Marcelle leads us through a conversation that digs into the history of the “Disney vault,” the American values implicit in the movie, the relationship between exploitation and representation, and much, much more!Whether you remember renting the movie on VHS from your local video store or you first watched Aladdin on streaming, this episode is for you.Related listening:Pirates of the Caribbean x American ExceptionalismBarbie x Petro-CapitalismSweet Potato Fries x Food ImperialismWitch, Please: Book 1, Ep. 2 | OrientalismWorks Cited:“Aladdin (1992 Disney Film).” Wikipedia. 2 June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(1992_Disney_film)#. Accessed 3 June 2026. Cunningham, Andrew. “The Ultimate Collectors Guide To Disney VHS Tapes.” Our Departure Board. March 20, 2025. https://www.ourdepartureboard.com/blog/disney-vhs-ultimate-guide. Accessed 3 June 2026.“Disney Vault.” Wikipedia. 23 April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault. Accessed 3 June 2026.JanMohamed, Abdul R. “The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The Function of Racial Difference in Colonialist Literature.” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 59–87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343462.Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage, 1979.“VHS.” Wikipedia. 2 June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS. Accessed 3 June 2026.***To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a Material Concerns episode!Material Girls is a show that makes sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both.Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We can show you the world…of the pervasive colonialism in nostalgic Disney movies! In this episode, Marcelle and Hannah talk all about the Disney classic Aladdin. With the help of Abdul JanMohamed's manichean allegory—an aspect of Orientalist literature—Marcelle leads us through a conversation that digs into the history of the “Disney vault,” the American values implicit in the movie, the relationship between exploitation and representation, and much, much more!Whether you remember renting the movie on VHS from your local video store or you first watched Aladdin on streaming, this episode is for you.Related listening:Pirates of the Caribbean x American ExceptionalismBarbie x Petro-CapitalismSweet Potato Fries x Food ImperialismWitch, Please: Book 1, Ep. 2 | OrientalismWorks Cited:“Aladdin (1992 Disney Film).” Wikipedia. 2 June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(1992_Disney_film)#. Accessed 3 June 2026. Cunningham, Andrew. “The Ultimate Collectors Guide To Disney VHS Tapes.” Our Departure Board. March 20, 2025. https://www.ourdepartureboard.com/blog/disney-vhs-ultimate-guide. Accessed 3 June 2026.“Disney Vault.” Wikipedia. 23 April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault. Accessed 3 June 2026.JanMohamed, Abdul R. “The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The Function of Racial Difference in Colonialist Literature.” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 59–87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343462.Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage, 1979.“VHS.” Wikipedia. 2 June 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS. Accessed 3 June 2026.***To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a Material Concerns episode!Material Girls is a show that makes sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both.Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The “sandwich generation” is made up of people balancing the demands of raising children while caring for aging loved ones. This hour, we learn about the emotional, professional and financial realities facing this population of caregivers. Journalist Kelli María Korducki discusses her reporting on caregiving and career sacrifice, while University of Connecticut professor Laura Mauldin offers insight into the gender dynamics of care. And later, we hear from a Connecticut resident and member of the "sandwich generation.” We learn what it's like to navigate these responsibilities in everyday life and what policies could provide some relief. Guests: Kelli María Korducki: independent, New York City-based journalist and author Laura Mauldin: associate professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut and author of "In Sickness and Health: Love Stories from the Front Line of America’s Caregiving Crisis." Natalie Shurtleff: Associate State Director of Advocacy and Outreach for AARP Connecticut Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti  ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users. It interrogates how their design impact the forms of inclusions and exclusions enacted as well as the horizon of social behaviors and expectations in "Digital India." The book contends that to understand the possibilities and limits of India's aspirational politics, media studies scholars should attend to infrastructures of aspiration: the distributional logistics of streaming content and mobile money are the infrastructural backbone that recalibrate thresholds of aspirational goals.  Digital content media distribution is also shaped by how user practices get entangled with particular affordances of platforms, and hence the need to study both participatory cultures of circulation and logistics of distribution together. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis and participant observation, the book traces the supply chains of content delivery networks enabling streaming video-on-demand services and informal ways of circulating "vernacular" music videos through memory cards. Unlimited does not restrict itself to formal media infrastructures, but also researches online phishing and lending scam assemblages to understand how such scams perform critical boundary work to reveal the cracks in and workings of financial distribution networks. This book offers a systematic examination of distribution considerations—including localization strategies—required for imagining mobile phone users across the varied regional geographies of "Digital India." Rahul Mukherjee is Associate Professor of TV & New Media and graduate chair in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research focus on the logistical and environmental dimensions of digital infrastructures and platforms. Rahul is the author of the monograph Radiant Infrastructures, and his work has been published in Critical Inquiry, SM+S, New Media & Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values. He has co-edited a special issue on "Media Power in Digital Asia" for Media, Culture & Society journal.   Priyam Sinha is an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical media industry studies, disability studies, gender studies, affect studies, production culture studies, and anthropology of the body, and her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; South Asian Diaspora, among others. She is also a regular podcast host at the New Books Network and has been published in public writing forums like the Economic and Political Weekly, FemAsia, Asian Film Archive, among others. More information on her ongoing projects can be found on her website and you can follow her on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti  ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users. It interrogates how their design impact the forms of inclusions and exclusions enacted as well as the horizon of social behaviors and expectations in "Digital India." The book contends that to understand the possibilities and limits of India's aspirational politics, media studies scholars should attend to infrastructures of aspiration: the distributional logistics of streaming content and mobile money are the infrastructural backbone that recalibrate thresholds of aspirational goals.  Digital content media distribution is also shaped by how user practices get entangled with particular affordances of platforms, and hence the need to study both participatory cultures of circulation and logistics of distribution together. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis and participant observation, the book traces the supply chains of content delivery networks enabling streaming video-on-demand services and informal ways of circulating "vernacular" music videos through memory cards. Unlimited does not restrict itself to formal media infrastructures, but also researches online phishing and lending scam assemblages to understand how such scams perform critical boundary work to reveal the cracks in and workings of financial distribution networks. This book offers a systematic examination of distribution considerations—including localization strategies—required for imagining mobile phone users across the varied regional geographies of "Digital India." Rahul Mukherjee is Associate Professor of TV & New Media and graduate chair in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research focus on the logistical and environmental dimensions of digital infrastructures and platforms. Rahul is the author of the monograph Radiant Infrastructures, and his work has been published in Critical Inquiry, SM+S, New Media & Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values. He has co-edited a special issue on "Media Power in Digital Asia" for Media, Culture & Society journal.   Priyam Sinha is an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical media industry studies, disability studies, gender studies, affect studies, production culture studies, and anthropology of the body, and her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; South Asian Diaspora, among others. She is also a regular podcast host at the New Books Network and has been published in public writing forums like the Economic and Political Weekly, FemAsia, Asian Film Archive, among others. More information on her ongoing projects can be found on her website and you can follow her on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti  ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users. It interrogates how their design impact the forms of inclusions and exclusions enacted as well as the horizon of social behaviors and expectations in "Digital India." The book contends that to understand the possibilities and limits of India's aspirational politics, media studies scholars should attend to infrastructures of aspiration: the distributional logistics of streaming content and mobile money are the infrastructural backbone that recalibrate thresholds of aspirational goals.  Digital content media distribution is also shaped by how user practices get entangled with particular affordances of platforms, and hence the need to study both participatory cultures of circulation and logistics of distribution together. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis and participant observation, the book traces the supply chains of content delivery networks enabling streaming video-on-demand services and informal ways of circulating "vernacular" music videos through memory cards. Unlimited does not restrict itself to formal media infrastructures, but also researches online phishing and lending scam assemblages to understand how such scams perform critical boundary work to reveal the cracks in and workings of financial distribution networks. This book offers a systematic examination of distribution considerations—including localization strategies—required for imagining mobile phone users across the varied regional geographies of "Digital India." Rahul Mukherjee is Associate Professor of TV & New Media and graduate chair in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research focus on the logistical and environmental dimensions of digital infrastructures and platforms. Rahul is the author of the monograph Radiant Infrastructures, and his work has been published in Critical Inquiry, SM+S, New Media & Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values. He has co-edited a special issue on "Media Power in Digital Asia" for Media, Culture & Society journal.   Priyam Sinha is an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical media industry studies, disability studies, gender studies, affect studies, production culture studies, and anthropology of the body, and her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; South Asian Diaspora, among others. She is also a regular podcast host at the New Books Network and has been published in public writing forums like the Economic and Political Weekly, FemAsia, Asian Film Archive, among others. More information on her ongoing projects can be found on her website and you can follow her on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti  ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users. It interrogates how their design impact the forms of inclusions and exclusions enacted as well as the horizon of social behaviors and expectations in "Digital India." The book contends that to understand the possibilities and limits of India's aspirational politics, media studies scholars should attend to infrastructures of aspiration: the distributional logistics of streaming content and mobile money are the infrastructural backbone that recalibrate thresholds of aspirational goals.  Digital content media distribution is also shaped by how user practices get entangled with particular affordances of platforms, and hence the need to study both participatory cultures of circulation and logistics of distribution together. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis and participant observation, the book traces the supply chains of content delivery networks enabling streaming video-on-demand services and informal ways of circulating "vernacular" music videos through memory cards. Unlimited does not restrict itself to formal media infrastructures, but also researches online phishing and lending scam assemblages to understand how such scams perform critical boundary work to reveal the cracks in and workings of financial distribution networks. This book offers a systematic examination of distribution considerations—including localization strategies—required for imagining mobile phone users across the varied regional geographies of "Digital India." Rahul Mukherjee is Associate Professor of TV & New Media and graduate chair in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research focus on the logistical and environmental dimensions of digital infrastructures and platforms. Rahul is the author of the monograph Radiant Infrastructures, and his work has been published in Critical Inquiry, SM+S, New Media & Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values. He has co-edited a special issue on "Media Power in Digital Asia" for Media, Culture & Society journal.   Priyam Sinha is an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical media industry studies, disability studies, gender studies, affect studies, production culture studies, and anthropology of the body, and her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; South Asian Diaspora, among others. She is also a regular podcast host at the New Books Network and has been published in public writing forums like the Economic and Political Weekly, FemAsia, Asian Film Archive, among others. More information on her ongoing projects can be found on her website and you can follow her on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Around 2016, buoyed by so-called data kranti  ("data revolution"), an aspirational neo-middle class of users in India accessed internet for the first time on their mobile phones. Unlimited: Aspirational Politics and Mobile Media Distribution (MIT Press, 2026) tells the story of digital infrastructures that are being created by state-corporations for content and money to move and reach such users. It interrogates how their design impact the forms of inclusions and exclusions enacted as well as the horizon of social behaviors and expectations in "Digital India." The book contends that to understand the possibilities and limits of India's aspirational politics, media studies scholars should attend to infrastructures of aspiration: the distributional logistics of streaming content and mobile money are the infrastructural backbone that recalibrate thresholds of aspirational goals.  Digital content media distribution is also shaped by how user practices get entangled with particular affordances of platforms, and hence the need to study both participatory cultures of circulation and logistics of distribution together. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis and participant observation, the book traces the supply chains of content delivery networks enabling streaming video-on-demand services and informal ways of circulating "vernacular" music videos through memory cards. Unlimited does not restrict itself to formal media infrastructures, but also researches online phishing and lending scam assemblages to understand how such scams perform critical boundary work to reveal the cracks in and workings of financial distribution networks. This book offers a systematic examination of distribution considerations—including localization strategies—required for imagining mobile phone users across the varied regional geographies of "Digital India." Rahul Mukherjee is Associate Professor of TV & New Media and graduate chair in the Department of Cinema & Media Studies at University of Pennsylvania. His teaching and research focus on the logistical and environmental dimensions of digital infrastructures and platforms. Rahul is the author of the monograph Radiant Infrastructures, and his work has been published in Critical Inquiry, SM+S, New Media & Society, and Science, Technology & Human Values. He has co-edited a special issue on "Media Power in Digital Asia" for Media, Culture & Society journal.   Priyam Sinha is an Alexander Von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical media industry studies, disability studies, gender studies, affect studies, production culture studies, and anthropology of the body, and her work has been published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; South Asian Diaspora, among others. She is also a regular podcast host at the New Books Network and has been published in public writing forums like the Economic and Political Weekly, FemAsia, Asian Film Archive, among others. More information on her ongoing projects can be found on her website and you can follow her on X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

Misha Glenny and guests discuss cybernetics – the field of study which gave us the prefix ‘cyber' and helped lay the foundations for the information age. After the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as the study of communication, feedback, and control in both animals and machines. Cybernetics was first defined in 1948 by the American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) and aimed to find a shared universal language which could be used across disciplines. The name drew on an Ancient Greek word for steersman, the person who stands at the helm of a ship to steer or govern its course. Cybernetics saw the world as systems which used loops of information and feedback to adjust their own course of action. Those ideas could be applied to anything from thermostats to the human brain, and arguably laid foundations for the information age.WithJacob Ward Historian of science and technology at Maastricht UniversityJon Agar Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College LondonAndOrit Halpern Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität DresdenProducer: Martha OwenReading list:Peter Galison, 'The ontology of the enemy: Norbert Wiener and the cybernetic vision' (Critical Inquiry 21, 1994)Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2004)Orit Halpern, Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke University Press, 2015)Orit Halpern, Robert Mitchell and Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, The Smartness Mandate: Notes toward a Critique (Grey Room 68, 2017) Orit Halpern, Financializing Intelligence: On the Integration of Machines and Markets (e-flux, March 2023)N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (University of Chicago Press, 1999)Steve J. Heims, John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener, From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (MIT Press, 1980)Ronald R. Kline, The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age The Information Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)Eden Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (MIT Press, 2011)David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)Andrew Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future (University of Chicago Press, 2010)Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (first published 1950; Da Capo Press, 1988)In Our Time is a BBC Studios productionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

O que há em comum entre uma bateria antiaérea da Segunda Guerra Mundial, os algoritmos do WhatsApp e o bolsonarismo? Para Letícia Cesarino, professora associada de Antropologia Social na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, a resposta está na cibernética. Neste episódio, produzido em parceria com o Observatório da Extrema Direita, David Magalhães e Guilherme Casarões recebem Letícia para discutir seu artigo recém-publicado na revista Current Anthropology: “An Ecology of Mind Approach to Far-Right Publics in Brazil“, no qual ela aplica o quadro teórico da ecologia da mente, desenvolvido pelo antropólogo Gregory Bateson, para reler o bolsonarismo como um sistema tecnopolítico. No bloco de notícias, David traz dois termômetros da extrema-direita global: os resultados das eleições municipais na França, que revelam o avanço territorial do Rassemblement National a despeito de um teto de vidro nas grandes cidades, e as eleições húngaras de abril, onde Peter Magyar desafia 15 anos de governo Orbán. E ainda tem, no último bloco, dica cultural. Aperte o play! Quer apoiar o Chutando a Escada? Acesse chutandoaescada.com.br/apoio Mande um café usando nossa chave PIX: perguntas@chutandoaescada.com.br Comentários, críticas, sugestões? Escreva pra gente em perguntas@chutandoaescada.com.br Participaram deste episódio: Letícia Cesarino (UFSC), David Magalhães e Guilherme Casarões Capa do episódio: Agência Brasil (CC BY 3.0 BR) Escute também no Spotify, no YouTube ou Apple Podcasts. Capítulos: 00:00 — Abertura 00:02 — Entrevista: ecologia da mente, cibernética e extrema-direita digital 00:32 — Bolsonarismo, populismo e públicos digitais artificiais 00:45 — Radicalização, a lacuna online-offline e os limites da etnografia 00:57 — Boletim: França — eleições municipais e o Rassemblement National 01:03 — Boletim: Hungria — Orbán e Peter Magyar às vésperas das eleições de abril 01:08 — Dica cultural: Feels Good Man (Amazon Prime, 2020) Citados no episódio CESARINO, Letícia. “An Ecology of Mind Approach to Far-Right Publics in Brazil”. Current Anthropology, 2026. BATESON, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chandler, 1972. GALISON, Peter. “The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision”. Critical Inquiry, v. 21, n. 1, 1994. WIENER, Norbert. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press, 1948. MASSUMI, Brian. Ontopower: War, Powers, and the State of Perception. Duke University Press, 2015. SIMONDON, Gilbert. L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information. Jérôme Millon, 2005. LIFTON, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Basic Books, 1986. EASTON, David. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. Wiley, 1965. Documentário Feels Good Man. Direção: Arthur Jones. EUA, 2020. Disponível na Amazon Prime. Chute 391 — Transcrição Parceria Chutando a Escada e Observatório da Extrema Direita Publicado em 26 de março de 2026 Abertura David Magalhães: Olá, pessoal! Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da parceria entre o Chutando a Escada e o Observatório da Extrema Direita — o primeiro episódio de 2026. A partir de agora, nos encontramos sempre na última semana de cada mês com episódios dedicados a discutir a extrema-direita em suas dimensões globais, teóricas e também reagindo ao calor dos acontecimentos. Para quem já acompanha o podcast, vale lembrar que nosso programa segue dividido em três blocos. No primeiro, trazemos uma entrevista mais aprofundada com pesquisadores e pesquisadoras que estão na linha de frente desse debate. Depois, passamos para um boletim com as análises das principais notícias envolvendo a extrema-direita global. E, para fechar, uma dica cultural sempre conectada com o universo do extremismo de direita — pode ser um livro, um filme, uma série, uma produção musical. Peço que você fique conosco até o fim, porque a dica deste episódio está completamente relacionada com o tema da nossa entrevista. Vamos lá. Entrevista — Letícia Cesarino David Magalhães: Estou aqui com o meu amigo Guilherme Casarões para receber a nossa convidada deste episódio, que é a Letícia Cesarino. A Letícia é professora associada de Antropologia Social na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina e também uma das novas integrantes do Observatório da Extrema Direita. Aproveitamos para dar as boas-vindas — é um prazer ter você conosco, não só no episódio, mas também no Observatório. Nos últimos cinco anos, a Letícia desenvolveu uma pesquisa bastante aprofundada e relevante sobre antropologia digital, extrema-direita e redes sociais. E, mais recentemente, ela acaba de publicar — acabou de sair do forno — um artigo bastante interessante e instigante na revista Current Anthropology. O artigo se intitula “An Ecology of Mind Approach to Far-Right Publics in Brazil” — algo como uma abordagem da ecologia da mente aplicada aos públicos de extrema-direita no Brasil. A ideia deste episódio é discutir esse novo artigo. Letícia, você mobiliza um quadro teórico bastante sofisticado, especialmente ao trazer a ideia de ecologia da mente — ecology of mind —, que vem do trabalho de Gregory Bateson, um antropólogo e linguista britânico importante do século XX. Confesso que não o conhecia; encontrei o livro dele em PDF na internet e li um pouco para me inteirar de como você adota e aplica esse quadro teórico para discutir redes sociais e extrema-direita brasileira. Fiquei bastante interessado no uso do termo “cibernético”, porque para ouvidos contemporâneos ele remete imediatamente ao universo digital, de redes e internet. Mas as principais obras de Bateson são publicadas logo após a Segunda Guerra, nos anos 1960 e 1970 — embora ele tenha iniciado seu desenvolvimento nos anos 1930 —, e ele não estava falando exatamente de internet. Isso me gerou dúvidas. Antes de falarmos da aplicação propriamente dita, você poderia nos explicar um pouco sobre essa abordagem e esse quadro teórico? Bateson propõe tudo isso muito antes da chamada terceira revolução industrial. Letícia Cesarino: Oi, David, Casarões. É um grande prazer estar aqui com vocês no podcast e também no Observatório da Extrema Direita como um todo. Obrigada pelo convite. Acho que esse artigo é um bom gancho para trabalharmos questões da minha abordagem mais específica para a extrema-direita, porque, diferente de muitos que trabalham nesse campo, eu não venho dos estudos da política. Sou uma antropóloga cuja área de origem é a antropologia da ciência e tecnologia — sempre foi assim, desde a graduação —, e nos últimos anos fui transitando para essas questões das mediações digitais, das plataformas e da cibernética. O meu olhar para a extrema-direita é, portanto, um olhar tecnopolítico. O meu interesse é entender essa dimensão relativamente pouco trabalhada nas ciências sociais: o papel das máquinas, o papel da técnica, o papel das infraestruturas técnicas na conformação dessa força política e, mais especificamente no caso desse artigo, dos ecossistemas digitais de extrema-direita. A ecologia da mente e o Bateson — nos últimos anos consolidei em torno da obra dele um arcabouço que remeto também a outros autores da antropologia e da área dos estudos de mídia e tecnopolítica, para desenvolver uma perspectiva que veja agência humana e maquínica juntas, de forma recursiva. E aí a cibernética — podemos começar por ela, esclarecendo o termo. O termo remete a computadores, o que faz sentido, porque a cibernética clássica dos anos 1940, a de Norbert Wiener, o matemático estadunidense que inventou o termo, também deu origem à indústria de tecnologia que temos hoje. Existe, portanto, uma continuidade entre o que chamamos de cibernética hoje e o que era a cibernética como superciência da comunicação e do controle, tanto nos sistemas maquínicos como nos sistemas animais, incluindo o humano. Gregory Bateson fez parte do grupo original das chamadas Conferências Macy, nos anos 1940. Mas depois da Segunda Guerra houve uma bifurcação: uma linha foi trabalhar o que chamo de cibernética das máquinas — Norbert Wiener, Von Neumann, todos os nomes precursores da indústria de tecnologia, da construção dos computadores, da inteligência artificial —, enquanto Bateson foi trabalhar a questão da cibernética dentro de uma chave mais próxima da teoria da evolução e da história natural, o que chamo de cibernética da vida. Ele tem um arcabouço que inclui a cibernética das máquinas, os princípios comuns do funcionamento de máquinas cibernéticas, humanos e animais, mas vai além, trazendo as camadas extras que o humano coloca na relação com a máquina. Nesse sentido, a ecologia da mente inclui a cibernética, mas é maior. É a partir desse ponto de vista que tenho olhado para a participação de máquinas cibernéticas — que, no fundo, hoje são basicamente algoritmos, e a evolução dos algoritmos são as inteligências artificiais — e como elas influem e participam em processos que entendemos como políticos, mas que, na verdade, são tecnopolíticos, porque têm cada vez mais a participação de agências não humanas, agências maquínicas. Guilherme Casarões: Letícia, eu também ficava intrigado com essa terminologia cibernética. Lembro que na faculdade, na aula de sociologia, tive contato com David Easton, que aplicava a cibernética aos sistemas políticos e aos sistemas humanos em geral. Sempre achei curioso que não tivesse a ver com computador — essa foi a maneira como sempre encaramos o termo. Mas toda teoria de sistemas convida a um tipo de abordagem cibernética, com essa linguagem muito interessante de inputs e outputs, de como os sistemas funcionam. Trazer isso de volta à discussão é fundamental. E você argumenta no seu texto que a infraestrutura das redes sociais carrega uma espécie de ontologia do inimigo, herdada dessa cibernética militar da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Como essa visão do ser humano como um servomecanismo — um animal a ser controlado por algoritmos — cria uma afinidade eletiva com a lógica da guerra e a desumanização do outro praticadas pela extrema-direita? Letícia Cesarino: Ótima pergunta. É um bom gancho para colocarmos mais camadas na questão da cibernética. O que tentaram fazer nos anos 1940 — e é importante notar que a cibernética nasce do esforço de guerra, do esforço de guerra dos americanos entrando na Segunda Guerra contra o nazifascismo; a primeira conferência foi em 1946, se não me engano — era produzir conhecimento básico, porque a cibernética é uma ciência que explicaria formas comuns de funcionamento de máquinas cibernéticas, de animais e de humanos. O que têm em comum entre o funcionamento desses sistemas? A cibernética gira em torno da ideia não só de input e output, mas principalmente do feedback — quando o output volta para o sistema como input. O coração da cibernética é essa questão da recursividade, ou causalidade circular, que é uma característica de qualquer organismo vivo e também de máquinas construídas à imagem e semelhança desses organismos, ou seja, máquinas que tomam decisões sozinhas. Essa é, para mim, a principal definição de máquina cibernética, porque os algoritmos fazem isso. Mas muito antes da indústria de tecnologia, outras máquinas já faziam isso — como a própria máquina a vapor de James Watt, que é a base do que Marx, no uso grundrissiano, chama de automata. Ele já identificou no século XIX que havia máquinas sendo incorporadas nas infraestruturas do trabalho que tomavam decisões sozinhas — ainda muito rudimentares, mas a ideia de que as máquinas começam a dar o ritmo do trabalho humano já estava colocada desde o século XIX. A cibernética dos anos 1940 traz para o centro essa questão da guerra, que é quando houve um pico na produção dessas máquinas antes da indústria de tecnologia propriamente dita. Peter Galison — um dos grandes historiadores da ciência, físico de formação — tem um artigo no qual trabalha a ontologia da cibernética de Wiener a partir do contexto de guerra. Ele vai elaborar o que seria essa ontologia do inimigo de guerra a partir da cibernética. Ele faz uma progressão que vale a pena resgatar brevemente aqui. Quando você está numa conjuntura de guerra — uma conjuntura de exceção, isso é importante —, você precisa desumanizar seu inimigo, porque assim vai torná-lo eliminável. Em modelos de guerra anteriores, até a Primeira Guerra, quando você tinha que confrontar seu inimigo no corpo a corpo com uma baioneta ou uma arma de fogo de curto alcance, a forma de desumanização era através de analogias com animais, com monstros. Galison trabalha, por exemplo, cartas de soldados americanos que representam os japoneses através de analogias com ratos, com vermes. Essa é uma forma de desumanização. A segunda forma seria a da Segunda Guerra, que compartilha com a cibernética essa ideia do servomecanismo — um híbrido de humano-máquina. Quando Norbert Wiener começou a desenvolver a cibernética para produzir artilharia antiaérea — máquinas que conseguissem calcular sozinhas a trajetória do caça inimigo para atirar antes de o avião chegar, e o projétil encontrar o alvo no meio da trajetória —, o que o servomecanismo significa? Por que essa imagem do inimigo desumaniza? Porque não interessa quem está dirigindo aquele avião. O que interessa é como aquele avião se comporta — e um comportamento que possa ser previsto e controlado. É um tipo de desumanização cibernética. E podemos pensar também em outras formas de desumanização que evoluem com a guerra, como essa guerra de videogame que temos hoje, onde o inimigo não é sequer visto — é quase como algo da fantasia dos videogames. Isso sempre acompanha a guerra. A cibernética é uma boa epistemologia para entender contextos de exceção, conjunturas de guerra, conjunturas de crise que não se superam, porque são conjunturas de grande instabilidade, de não linearidade, com essa tendência à bifurcação do corpo social. Essas são ferramentas melhores para esse tipo de conjuntura do que muitas das ferramentas clássicas das ciências sociais — Durkheim, por exemplo, desenvolveu ferramentas em sua maioria para contextos de estabilidade, de paz, onde o social está mais estruturado, mais previsível e regido por normas. Num contexto de exceção, de crise e de guerra, o social muda de modo de funcionamento. Uma das hipóteses do meu próximo livro é a de que o social de guerra, de exceção e de crise, funciona em outra dinâmica, e que a cibernética tem boas ferramentas para entender isso, inclusive as formas de desumanização que tendem a se proliferar nesses contextos. David Magalhães: Excelente. Acho que é um bom gancho para avançarmos para a parte do seu texto em que você enquadra todo esse arcabouço para compreender a extrema-direita em ambiente digital. As principais linhas interpretativas preocupadas em compreender a ascensão dessa onda ultradireitista global olham para a questão ideológica, para eleitores frustrados, para a relação desses eleitores com a globalização e com a crise da democracia liberal. Mas você propõe algo diferente: observar esse fenômeno como um grande organismo cibernético, um sistema no qual humanos — lideranças, influenciadores, seguidores — e máquinas — algoritmos do WhatsApp, do Telegram, de redes sociais — operam de maneira integrada, como parte de um ecossistema. O que ganhamos analiticamente ao fazer esse deslocamento? Letícia Cesarino: São muitas camadas. Uma das coisas que acho importante — sempre começo palestras com isso — é a questão do ciborgue. O que é o ciborgue? É um híbrido de humano-máquina, outra forma de falar no servomecanismo. Mas temos essa imagem fantasiosa do ciborgue que vem da ficção científica, a de que seria um indivíduo com partes de sua função fisiológica — alimentação, respiração — suplementadas por máquina. O Robocop seria o tipo ideal disso. O ciborgue da vida real, porém, não se parece em nada com o Robocop. O ciborgue da vida real somos nós. É qualquer um que acorda e a primeira coisa que faz é pegar o celular — para olhar o WhatsApp ou para desligar o alarme — e fica nessa relação de dependência com aquela máquina o dia inteiro, para questões de memória e de tomada de decisão. Por que isso acontece? Porque o Homo sapiens é uma espécie extremamente técnica — uma questão antropológica. Sobrevivemos como espécie, enquanto todos os outros hominíneos foram extintos, pela questão da técnica, da cultura. Precisamos ser suplementados. Como espécie biológica, precisamos ser suplementados o tempo todo pela cultura e pela técnica. Isso não significa que outros animais não tenham técnica — vários mamíferos têm, pássaros também. Mas para o sapiens, isso é existencial. Como Bateson diz, a mente não termina na pele; a mente humana é estendida para o seu ambiente. A unidade de análise da ecologia da mente nunca é o indivíduo sozinho — tentamos delimitar qual é o circuito relevante, e esse circuito de feedbacks é sempre maior que o indivíduo. Pode ser uma família, como no caso dos cães e de uma matilha; pode ser uma comunidade, algum território existencial qualquer. E o nosso território existencial hoje passa necessariamente por essas tecnologias. Os algoritmos, as máquinas, a agência maquínica fazem parte desse território existencial. Isso é um preâmbulo para chegar ao argumento que também faço em vários textos — inclusive nesse —: de que a extrema-direita, se a gente for transposto para a política, é uma força política nativa digital, pelo menos essa extrema-direita que conhecemos hoje. O nazifascismo histórico tem muita participação de mídia, embora isso não seja suficientemente notado. Há muitos estudos históricos que mostram o papel do rádio na capilarização do Terceiro Reich, para conformar esse grande território existencial imaginado e como isso atraiu os alemães comuns em torno daquele projeto. De certa forma, algo similar — similar, mas muito diferente também — está sendo recolocado hoje com relação à nova infraestrutura técnica midiática que são as plataformas digitais. Evito usar a palavra “mídia” porque quando falamos em mídia pensamos em máquinas específicas — televisão, rádio —, mas plataformas não são exatamente mídias. Elas se sobrepõem a todo tipo de infraestrutura técnica, não apenas midiática. Com a plataformização — uma tendência relativamente recente; a internet era muito diferente antes de 2010 — e com os smartphones, que foram um verdadeiro game changer, as primeiras áreas cujos efeitos foram sentidos foram a política eleitoral e a área da saúde. Mesmo antes da pandemia, pesquisadores já identificavam como o autocuidado começou a passar rapidamente por essas infraestruturas, com o “doutor Google”. Para não me estender, vou colocar os dois pontos principais que desenvolvo no artigo, porque são mais ontológicos: como essas máquinas mudam a própria relação espaço-temporal dos nossos sistemas sociotécnicos. O que os algoritmos fazem? Eles hiperaceleram — e esse é, para mim, o ponto central. Quando você hiperaccelera, desestabiliza a relação da mente humana com o seu ambiente. Fica aquele fluxo constante de eventos ao qual você tem que responder o tempo todo, e cognitivamente isso é lido como uma situação de crise, do ponto de vista da ecologia da mente — não só para o humano, para qualquer espécie. Quando há uma instabilidade muito grande do ambiente, isso tende a reverter para o modo crise. É o que Wendy Chun chama de situação de crise permanente que as plataformas jogam nos nossos sistemas sociotécnicos. Isso é, obviamente, uma base fértil para a instrumentalização por forças de extrema-direita. Um outro ponto que os algoritmos introduzem, relacionado à hiperaceleração — que seria uma dimensão mais temporal —, é uma dimensão mais espacial de bifurcação. Algoritmos programados para segmentar públicos, porque essa é a lógica do modelo de negócios da economia da atenção, acabam gerando — não sozinhos, mas na interação com os usuários humanos, porque a recursividade do humano-máquina vai para os dois lados — um efeito sistêmico não de segmentação pura e simples, mas de bifurcação. É aí que entra o código amigo-inimigo, a polarização, a sismogênese — todos esses processos de antagonismo extremo, o que chamo de “mundo do avesso”: um lado é o extremo oposto do outro, numa dinâmica de guerra em que só um pode prevalecer, porque o outro é visto como uma ameaça existencial. No ecossistema de extrema-direita, ele vai desde um polo mais moderado — Tarcísio, digamos — até um polo mais radicalizado — o pessoal do 8 de janeiro, o “tio França” que se explodiu na frente do STF. O que é a extrema-direita? Um lado? O outro? Agentes específicos? Discursos específicos? Não. Do ponto de vista da ecologia da mente, a extrema-direita é toda essa ecologia, todo esse ecossistema que cobre todo esse espectro e que inclui a agência maquínica como um dos seus principais motores. Primeiro porque ela desestabiliza o mundo real, com a hiperaceleração e todos esses processos. Mas ao mesmo tempo ela direciona — é como um rio que tem uma corrente que vai para um lado, e os agentes da extrema-direita são aqueles que nadam a favor da correnteza, porque as plataformas são um ambiente; elas não são variáveis. Elas mudam o ambiente no qual fazemos política. E esse ambiente tem vieses técnicos intrinsecamente favoráveis a uma força política como a extrema-direita. Por isso não é que eles estejam mais espertos ou inteligentes — é que a forma como fazem política converge com a lógica das redes de maneira subliminar, intrínseca. Como o Casarões disse, há uma certa afinidade eletiva com a lógica das plataformas. Mas essa afinidade não é aleatória — por isso foi importante voltarmos à cibernética dos anos 1940, ao esforço de guerra, à artilharia antiaérea. O próprio DNA dessa indústria de tecnologia se originou da guerra e nunca saiu da chave de guerra. Depois da Segunda Guerra, a cibernética se tornou parte da Guerra Fria, com a mesma lógica do controle indireto — fazer o inimigo fazer o que você quer que ele faça indiretamente —, que é essa ideia cibernética do controle numa chave sempre não linear, sempre recíproca. É o que o Trump exatamente tenta fazer agora, em outra versão. Houve um breve interregno onde se tornou uma indústria civil, nos anos 1980 e 1990, mas a lógica algorítmica, a lógica cibernética, continuou sendo a da guerra — só que agora, em vez de controlar o inimigo, você vai controlar o usuário, para fazê-lo clicar num anúncio e vender a atenção daquele usuário para os anunciantes. Há também uma convergência, especialmente durante a Guerra Fria, entre a lógica de guerra indireta, a lógica da propaganda e a indústria de publicidade que temos hoje. Não foi a publicidade que originou a propaganda política — foi a propaganda política que veio primeiro e depois se tornou uma indústria civil, que é o coração da lógica da economia da atenção. Mesmo essas plataformas que se colocavam como liberais sempre tiveram um DNA mais próximo da lógica de guerra, propaganda e controle indireto do que de algo parecido com democracia. Era, de certa forma, um pouco inevitável que as coisas se desenrolassem como estão se desenrolando, porque já estavam previstas na própria ontogênese dessa indústria — como Simondon chamaria —, uma ontogênese ligada à guerra, ao controle e à desumanização. As plataformas, os algoritmos, não nos veem como humanos. É exatamente a mesma coisa do caça com o piloto dirigindo: a máquina é incapaz de ver interioridade, incapaz de ver subjetividade. Ela só nos interpela no nível do controle, da previsão de comportamento. A política está se tornando isso — retroalimentando-se com os discursos da extrema-direita que ativam o senso comum na direção da regeneração, que é a lógica do fascismo histórico: seria possível vencer essa crise, resetar o sistema e construir o estereótipo de um inimigo que precisa ser derrotado para que a crise permanente seja superada. No fim das contas, é uma mistificação de processos reais e de problemas reais, numa linguagem nacionalista e nativista. Guilherme Casarões: Letícia, um outro conceito com que você trabalha no texto e na sua obra é o de populismo. Uma das passagens que mais me chamaram a atenção — e que acho fascinante — é que essa abordagem ecológica de Bateson ganha muita relevância frente ao populismo contemporâneo, justamente porque esse populismo se ampara em públicos que, como você diz no texto, são parcialmente artificiais. A passagem, para quem quiser ler depois, está na página 2 do texto: “os públicos que são produzidos por essa dinâmica são resultados transindividuais de uma agência que é humana e não humana, na medida em que os algoritmos coemergem permanentemente por meio de ciclos cibernéticos”. Essa questão da artificialidade do público é muito central para entender tanto a dinâmica amigo-inimigo quanto a maneira pela qual o populismo contemporâneo consegue controlar a construção narrativa e a mobilização de seu público. Queria ir mais especificamente para o caso que você estuda no texto, que é o bolsonarismo. Seu texto descreve o bolsonarismo não só como uma ideologia, mas como uma dinâmica mutante que oscila entre a moderação e a radicalização. Você traz o conceito de indecidibilidade rítmica — essa coisa de ir e voltar — e eu queria que você explicasse como o bolsonarismo, a partir dessa chave analítica, alterna entre o institucional e o antiestructural, e como isso permitiu ao ex-presidente Bolsonaro manter o sistema político num estado de antagonismo permanente sem chegar a uma ruptura total — o que só vai acontecer em 2023. Letícia Cesarino: O que tentei fazer nesse texto é reler parte do governo Bolsonaro até as eleições de 2022 a partir dessa lógica cibernética — ou seja, como ele performou uma dinâmica cibernética que é essa tecnopolítica moldada pelas máquinas. Casarões, você trouxe a questão do populismo, e acho que são etapas. Desde 2013 até 2018, temos essa invasão muito forte e muito rápida da agência técnica dessas mídias e desses dispositivos dentro da política — um movimento mais tectônico, de desestabilização. E aí essas figuras aparecendo mais ou menos ao mesmo tempo: Modi, Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Orbán — é aí que o conceito de populismo realmente faz mais sentido, nesse sentido dessa irrupção de uma política antiliberal, com uma norma mais afetiva, mais espontânea. É a política da exceção. E que, novamente, bate com a estrutura das plataformas, porque as plataformas também são políticas de exceção e de multidão. É importante termos isso em mente. A citação que você trouxe mostra como as plataformas fazem um tipo de prestidigitação: colocam uma coisa na interface, então o usuário tem a impressão de que é livre, de que é um indivíduo, enquanto o que está acontecendo atrás da tela é que esse indivíduo está sendo desagregado e reagregado com fragmentos de outros usuários em grandes multidões digitais. Ele não tem liberdade — ao contrário, está tendo seu comportamento indiretamente controlado, no sentido cibernético, pelos algoritmos. E esse social de multidão é o social de crise. Quem está imerso nesses ambientes está se colocando num modo crise — e a extrema-direita é a força política que mais combina com esse tipo de ambiente. Sem crise eles não são nada. Se você tirar a crise, a atmosfera de ameaça de que o Brasil vai acabar, eles não têm nada. Por isso não têm programa político: são uma força política na e da crise e da exceção. Daí esse paradoxo de como uma tecnopolítica de crise, de exceção e de guerra se rotiniza como um governo — que foi exatamente o paradoxo do governo Bolsonaro. E ainda teve a pandemia, que adicionou uma camada enorme de crise a isso. Ciberneticamente, faz muito sentido esse vai e vem — os ciclos de feedback positivo e negativo. O feedback positivo é o que acelera o viés que você já está; o negativo coloca um freio. Bolsonaro, enquanto governante, não podia ficar só no runaway, só no feedback positivo, porque o feedback positivo sozinho eventualmente leva a um colapso — tanto nos organismos vivos como nas máquinas. O que ele e o Trump fazem é colocar estrategicamente esses freios, esses recuos: avanço e recuo, feedback positivo e negativo. Tentei mostrar no artigo como isso se deu durante o governo e como esse processo perde o controle na eleição de 2022, redundando eventualmente no 8 de janeiro. O governo Bolsonaro não construiu nada — estava destruindo coisas, que é o que a extrema-direita faz — mas dosando até onde poderia ir na relação com os outros agentes: o Congresso Nacional, o público. E o público passou a ser medido através das redes sociais — pelas métricas das mídias digitais — e cada vez mais por pesquisas de opinião, que são outra forma de feedback que coteja com as mídias sociais. Bolsonaro foi assim sentindo, de forma propriamente recursiva, lidando com um ambiente de causalidades circulares, crises, etc. A linearidade só é possível em contextos de estabilidade e paz — e é exatamente o que o Trump está fazendo hoje. Agora, uma virada acontece, e aí é muito importante a questão do método. Esse artigo é baseado em pesquisa de métodos mistos, onde a abordagem qualitativa antropológica foi composta com uma abordagem computacional de grandes quantidades de dados, com os meus parceiros da Universidade da Bahia, do LabHD, onde fazíamos o mapeamento em tempo real dos públicos do Telegram. Foi muito interessante ver como, em meados de 2021, o comportamento desse ecossistema transindividual — que chamamos de públicos refratados, os públicos da extrema-direita — mudou. O comportamento pandêmico, ativado pela pandemia, e inclusive as teorias da conspiração começaram a diminuir. Isso foi bem na época da questão do voto impresso. Quando o voto impresso é enterrado, um conspiracionismo eleitoral começa a subir e se estabilizar. Por quê? As condenações do Lula tinham sido definitivamente canceladas, e eles, na mentalidade de guerra deles, já previam: “Está vindo um golpe que vai impedir o Bolsonaro de ganhar as eleições de 2022.” Isso mais de um ano antes da eleição. Já entraram no modo de contra-golpe. Que é outra característica desse social de crise — o que Brian Massumi, também batesoniano, chama de preempção: você passa a agir antecipando a ação do seu inimigo. É muito como a lógica da Guerra Fria entre os dois blocos. Por isso a extrema-direita está sempre reagindo — isso é uma característica muito consistente, inclusive dos ecossistemas misóginos, que estão sempre reagindo à suposta provocação ou traição da mulher. O bolsonarismo entrou nesse modo preemptivo, com a certeza de que haveria um golpe contra ele. Na cabeça deles, dessa grande mente transindividual controlada pelo Bolsonaro, o golpe deles era um contra-golpe: seria dado um golpe no Bolsonaro, e o que estavam fazendo seria a resposta. Quando você vê tudo o que fizeram ao longo desse tempo com esse olhar, tudo faz sentido — e o Bolsonaro, como depois ficou demonstrado, de fato estava tentando articular esse contra-golpe. Nas eleições de 2022, estavam nessa dinâmica de avanço e recuo, não deixando o sistema escalar demais, a temperatura subir demais, enquanto conspiravam. Quando ele finalmente desiste, vê que não ganhou a eleição — isso se arrasta por algumas semanas —, e quando realmente percebem que os comandantes das três forças não vão entrar, que o golpe não vai acontecer, Bolsonaro fica em silêncio. Ciberneticamente, isso foi muito importante, porque era ele que fazia a regulação cibernética entre a camada moderada e a camada radicalizada. Ele não deixava as coisas escalar. Era um agente de radicalização, mas também de moderação. Quando ele se retira, a coisa escala — e foi justamente o 8 de janeiro. Olha que interessante: quando aquela multidão invadiu o Congresso, o que aconteceu? Ficaram esperando para ver o que ia acontecer, porque confiavam no plano — só que o plano já tinha dado errado e eles não sabiam disso. Tem esse componente de um mundo de fantasia criado dentro das comunidades radicalizadas — o Bateson ajuda a entender isso, porque ele tem uma teoria cibernética da fantasia e do jogo. Foi aquele choque de realidade. Não houve mais regulação, não houve mais feedback negativo, a coisa escalou, a temperatura subiu — e é onde o artigo termina, fazendo essa releitura cibernética e ecológica dos eventos do segundo governo Bolsonaro e das eleições de 2022. David Magalhães: Ótimo, Letícia. Encaminhando para o fechamento: no finzinho do artigo você faz uma ressalva que achei bastante importante, ao apontar que a ecologia da mente é extremamente poderosa para entender essas dinâmicas sistêmicas mais amplas, mas que também tem limites — especialmente quando tentamos compreender a totalidade da vida cotidiana do sujeito. É justamente aí que você coloca a necessidade de retornar à etnografia tradicional, à etnografia offline. Queria te ouvir sobre esse desafio metodológico. Como a antropologia pode costurar essas duas pontes — de um lado, a visão de um sistema cibernético amplo no qual os indivíduos parecem agir quase como parte de um circuito, de maneira relativamente previsível; de outro, as trajetórias de vida, as experiências subjetivas, as dores concretas que não desaparecem. Como não reduzir essas pessoas a meros nós de rede? Letícia Cesarino: Ótima pergunta, porque é realmente um desafio metodológico. No caso da ecologia da mente, você nunca pode fechar só no indivíduo. Mas é possível — e é o que estou fazendo no livro novo — pensar como o indivíduo enquanto sistema, porque todo organismo individual é um sistema cibernético, com outras camadas além dele, mas ele próprio é uma camada de individuação bastante importante. Ele pode estar dividido entre dois territórios existenciais — e é um pouco como estou tentando trabalhar a questão da radicalização no livro novo. O online oferece um tipo de território existencial onde a persona online do sujeito está com interações específicas. É isso que gera o elemento de fantasia nas comunidades extremistas: no online é possível cultivar uma realidade e um tipo de estereotipação do inimigo, toda a questão da desinformação, que não é possível fazer no offline. Por isso o que aconteceu depois da invasão ao Congresso e ao STF: a realidade bateu. Eles achavam que a realidade era o que era cultivado na mente transindividual do online — e isso não bateu com o que estava acontecendo offline. Com a internet, não é mais preciso se deslocar fisicamente para se radicalizar. Você pode viver sua vida normalmente e, em parte do seu circuito, se radicalizar só no online. São muito esses casos que abordarei no próximo livro: adolescentes e jovens que estão no quarto jogando videogame, vivendo normalmente na escola, e estão fazendo coisas indescritíveis na internet — que você só vai descobrir quando a polícia bater na porta. Etnografar a radicalização é muito difícil, porque é um processo — você precisa acompanhar a pessoa desde o início, quando não estava radicalizada. É praticamente impossível, a não ser que alguém muito próximo passe por isso. Mas existem autorrelatos. Tenho trabalhado muito com o caso dos neonazistas, onde já há na Europa e nos Estados Unidos um repertório grande de testemunhos e autobiografias de pessoas que saíram dessas comunidades extremistas. No jihadismo também há bastante material; os manifestos de atiradores em escolas, por exemplo, muitas vezes trazem essa visão subjetiva da radicalização. Há um outro ponto que descobri e que não estava na pesquisa anterior: o que alguns estudos de radicalização chamam de reduplicação. Isso vem de um estudo histórico de Robert Lifton sobre médicos nazistas — como eles dividiam a personalidade. Quando estavam em Auschwitz, eram um tipo de pessoa; quando estavam em casa, com a família, eram completamente diferentes. Era uma reduplicação da personalidade em duas, como forma de resolver dissonâncias e contradições. O médico conseguia desumanizar as pessoas que selecionava para morrer em Auschwitz, enquanto em casa humanizava os seus. Algo assim parece acontecer também no nível da mente individual através da lacuna online–offline: as pessoas inconscientemente encontram formas de dividir a sua mente entre esses dois mundos, de forma que não precisem romper com familiares, amigos ou colegas de trabalho por razões políticas. Esse efeito da lacuna online–offline deve ser estudado — não é só uma questão metodológica, é a questão de qual é o efeito dessa própria separação, que é inédita: são as primeiras tecnologias que possibilitam essa divisão em ambientes existenciais separados, ainda que em relação recursiva. Isso pode ser um indutor de radicalização. Sabe aquele meme dos cachorros latindo no portão? Quando o portão abre, cada um vai para um lado. O humano tem um pouco disso: fica mais agressivo, fala coisas e faz coisas quando não está cara a cara com a pessoa — coisas que não faria no presencial. Isso é muito característico da extrema-direita: estão latindo, agressivos, no comportamento de ameaça, e quando a Polícia Federal bate na porta, revertem ao comportamento de autopiedade e vitimização — que é o que o Bolsonaro está fazendo agora na cadeia. Bateson trabalha isso muito bem, não só no humano, mas em outros mamíferos. A ecologia da mente, pegando inclusive insights de outros mamíferos — como o Bateson faz —, nos ajudaria a reincorporar o elemento biológico-evolutivo nas nossas explicações. E aqui chego a um ponto que acho muito importante: a extrema-direita tem todo um repertório do darwinismo social e da psicologia evolutiva para dizer que a forma como ela vê o humano é a forma real, a forma biológica, a forma natural. São leituras completamente erradas e enviesadas, mas para o senso comum são muito intuitivas. A questão de gênero, por exemplo: a ideia de que o homem é para um papel e a mulher para outro não tem apoio em estudos sérios de outras espécies ou da nossa. A antropologia, porém, abandonou esse campo — tornou-se etnografia, estudo da cultura, abandonou a natureza e a biologia, por razões relacionadas à história e à política interna da disciplina. Um dos meus objetivos é recuperar esse espaço de autoridade científica para falar do humano, do que é natural no humano, a partir de abordagens como a do Bateson — que é uma teoria da evolução que inclui a cultura — para competir também nesse campo da naturalização do comportamento humano. Eu diria que é talvez o campo mais persuasivo dos discursos da extrema-direita, porque a esquerda e as ciências sociais ficam só na desconstrução e no culturalismo, enquanto eles estão falando daquilo que é espontâneo, natural, atemporal. É assim que o fascismo mira, e precisamos competir nessa ordem de discurso, reivindicando uma abordagem científica mais universalista — um outro tipo de universalismo, não o positivista. A ecologia da mente é uma das principais vias que vejo para isso. No contexto desse artigo, foi também um subtexto: o artigo foi parte de um dossiê financiado pela Fundação Wenner-Gren, a maior fundação de antropologia dos Estados Unidos, e queria passar essa mensagem para os meus colegas antropólogos — a gente pode falar de universais humanos de uma forma mais refinada e rica, e competir com a extrema-direita nesse campo de discurso. Guilherme Casarões: Letícia Cesarino — incrível, tanto no pessoal quanto no profissional. E agora descobrimos, o que não deveria ser exatamente uma surpresa, que você é especialista em memes. Foi de longe uma das conversas mais eruditas que tivemos aqui, não só na colaboração com o OED, mas de todas as entrevistas que já fiz. Uma densidade impressionante, transmitida de forma didática. Tenho certeza de que os nossos ouvintes vão adorar esse papo. Quem está acompanhando, fiquem por aí — ainda temos a segunda parte da conversa, com o boletim de notícias e a dica cultural. Boletim — Giro de Notícias David Magalhães: Vamos ao nosso boletim com duas notícias envolvendo a ultradireita. França No próximo ano teremos eleições nacionais na França, que serão importantíssimas tanto para a Europa quanto para o futuro da direita radical no mundo. No dia 22 de março, domingo, ocorreu o segundo turno das eleições municipais francesas, que costuma ser um termômetro importante para medir o crescimento e a capilaridade da direita radical francesa, representada aqui pelo Rassemblement National. O resultado dessas eleições foi bastante ambíguo. O Rassemblement National, partido de Marine Le Pen e da estrela em ascensão Jordan Bardella, não conseguiu vencer em grandes cidades estratégicas — como Marselha e Toulon —, onde havia uma expectativa de vitória da direita radical. Por outro lado, o partido avançou de forma importante em outro nível: consolidou uma presença territorial, especialmente no sudeste e no nordeste do país, conquistando dezenas de prefeituras e ampliando de maneira bastante significativa sua base local. Hoje, de acordo com matéria do Le Monde de 23 de março, o Rassemblement National passa a governar aproximadamente 70 municípios e conta com cerca de 3 mil representantes locais — uma quantidade bastante considerável. Outro ponto central é um certo teto de vidro que tem impedido a vitória do RN em grandes cidades. Esses centros urbanos mais ricos, mais jovens e com maior nível educacional têm sido um desafio para a expansão da direita radical. Por outro lado, há um crescimento muito forte em áreas periféricas, regiões pós-industriais e comunas menores, geralmente marcadas por uma sensação de abandono e por um acúmulo de ressentimento — o que alguns autores chamam de left behinds, os que foram deixados para trás —, sentimento que a direita radical populista costuma explorar. Quero destacar ainda um fator que pode ser preocupante olhando para as eleições nacionais de 2027: não houve, ou houve em pouquíssimas cidades, a chamada frente republicana — também chamada de cordão sanitário. O cordão sanitário é o conjunto de alianças tradicionais de partidos com compromissos democráticos para barrar a direita radical no segundo turno das eleições. A quase inexistência desse cordão fez com que o RN conquistasse cidades onde, em eleições anteriores, havia sido bloqueado. No final das contas, essas eleições não deram o resultado que o RN esperava — um grande impulso nacional —, mas consolidaram uma base territorial sólida. Isso coloca uma questão relevante olhando para 2027: seria esse enraizamento local suficiente para sustentar uma vitória nas eleições presidenciais? Seguiremos acompanhando o caso da França. Hungria Passamos para a Hungria — continuamos falando de eleições, já que os húngaros vão às urnas em abril para decidir se encerram os 15 anos de governo de Viktor Orbán. No domingo, 15 de março, os dois principais atores políticos do país — Viktor Orbán, do Partido Fidesz, e o oposicionista Peter Magyar, do partido Tisza — realizaram grandes manifestações em Budapeste no Dia Nacional Húngaro. Mais do que uma comemoração histórica, os eventos funcionaram como um teste de força às vésperas das eleições de abril. Os dois lados reivindicaram vitória em termos de mobilização — como já vimos aqui no Brasil. O governo afirmou que foi uma das maiores marchas já realizadas no país, enquanto a oposição chegou a afirmar que reuniu meio milhão de pessoas. Ainda que sejam números exagerados, as estimativas independentes indicam que o Tisza, de Magyar, levou mais gente às ruas do que o Fidesz de Orbán, o que sinalizaria um possível avanço da oposição no campo urbano. Essas manifestações têm algo interessante: acontecem dentro de um calendário nacional, e foi possível observar uma disputa não só eleitoral, mas simbólica. Ambos os lados tentavam se apropriar da memória da Revolução de 1848. Orbán engendrou uma narrativa que associa o passado à luta contra o domínio estrangeiro, ao globalismo, à ingerência da União Europeia e à ameaça da guerra na Ucrânia. A oposição liderada por Peter Magyar utiliza os mesmos símbolos nacionais, mas com outros significados: para eles, a defesa da liberdade hoje se traduz em manter a Hungria dentro da União Europeia e vinculada à OTAN, além de restaurar o funcionamento das instituições democráticas do Estado húngaro — bastante prejudicadas nos anos de Orbán. As pesquisas de intenção de voto desde julho do ano passado mostram um quadro relativamente estável, com uma diferença de aproximadamente 10% em favor da oposição. É preciso ter cautela com essas pesquisas, no entanto, porque em 2011 Orbán fez uma importante reforma eleitoral que dá mais peso aos distritos rurais, geralmente mais conservadores. Além disso, ele concedeu cidadania a húngaros que vivem na Eslováquia, na Romênia e na Sérvia, uma população que tende a votar no governo. E há também uma mobilização ideológica mais incandescente da direita radical húngara, que pode fazer diferença nas urnas. Fato é que nenhum dos lados parece acreditar numa vitória esmagadora. Já se discute a possibilidade de alianças — o partido Jobbik, na Hungria, pode ser crucial para a formação de uma maioria no parlamento. No nosso episódio de abril, iremos repercutir o resultado dessa eleição. Dica Cultural David Magalhães: A nossa recomendação cultural deste episódio tem tudo a ver com a conversa que tivemos no primeiro bloco com a Letícia Cesarino. Se você se interessou pelo debate sobre internet, cultura digital, extrema-direita e disputa de narrativas, vale muito a pena assistir o documentário Feels Good Man, disponível na Amazon Prime. O documentário é de 2020, mas chegou recentemente a essa plataforma. O filme conta a história do Pepe the Frog, personagem criado pelo cartunista Matt Furie nos anos 2000. Originalmente era um sapo tranquilo, good vibes, que circulava numa tirinha independente. Com o tempo, porém, esse personagem foi sendo apropriado na internet — primeiro como meme, depois ganhando formas cada vez mais distorcidas, até virar um símbolo associado ao alt-right e a outros grupos de extrema-direita. O documentário é bastante interessante porque não trata isso como uma mera curiosidade da internet. Ele mostra como esse processo revela algo mais profundo: como essas comunidades online — fóruns, antigamente o 4chan, hoje um ecossistema bem mais complexo — funcionam como verdadeiros laboratórios de produção cultural e política, com uma lógica quase darwiniana de disputa por atenção, em que os conteúdos mais chocantes e extremos ganham mais visibilidade, com toda uma engenharia algorítmica por trás. O filme também acompanha o próprio criador do Pepe, que se vê completamente impotente diante da transformação da sua obra. E esse é um ponto central: na era da internet, a circulação de imagens e memes escapa completamente ao controle original — pode ser capturada e ressignificada por distintos atores políticos. O documentário tem um aspecto que dialoga diretamente com o que conversamos com a Letícia Cesarino: esses grupos utilizam o humor, a ironia, a ambiguidade e as trollagens para disseminar ideias racistas, misóginas e xenófobas, muitas vezes sob a aparência de brincadeira. Isso cria uma zona cinzenta que dificulta a crítica e, ao mesmo tempo, aumenta o alcance dessas mensagens de ódio. Feels Good Man nos ajuda a entender essa cultura digital e como ela se relaciona com a extrema-direita — e dialoga perfeitamente com os temas que trouxemos na entrevista do primeiro bloco. Até a próxima. The post Ecologia da mente e extrema-direita appeared first on Chutando a Escada.

Sixty percent of American adults live with a chronic illness. Consequently, upwards of 53 million adults have assumed uncompensated caregiving roles—frequently alongside existing professional and personal obligations. As these demands intensify, the absence of mental health infrastructure and the persistence of social devaluation lead many toward the brink of caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue. To better understand the state of spousal caregiver mental health, Harvesting Happiness Podcast Host Lisa Cypers Kamen speaks with Laura Mauldin, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut Laura draws from personal experience and years of research to share statistics and real-life examples of caregivers who find themselves at the intersection of their responsibilities and their human needs. Her book offers insights into those who provide essential support to those they love during a time of anti-ableism. Like what you're hearing? WANT MORE SOUND IDEAS FOR DEEPER THINKING? Check out More Mental Fitness by Harvesting Happiness bonus content available exclusively on https://harvestinghappiness.substack.com/ and https://medium.com/@HarvestingHappiness.

Sixty percent of American adults live with a chronic illness. Consequently, upwards of 53 million adults have assumed uncompensated caregiving roles—frequently alongside existing professional and personal obligations. As these demands intensify, the absence of mental health infrastructure and the persistence of social devaluation lead many toward the brink of caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue. To better understand the state of spousal caregiver mental health, Harvesting Happiness Podcast Host Lisa Cypers Kamen speaks with Laura Mauldin, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut Laura draws from personal experience and years of research to share statistics and real-life examples of caregivers who find themselves at the intersection of their responsibilities and their human needs. Her book offers insights into those who provide essential support to those they love during a time of anti-ableism. Like what you're hearing? WANT MORE SOUND IDEAS FOR DEEPER THINKING? Check out More Mental Fitness by Harvesting Happiness bonus content available exclusively on https://harvestinghappiness.substack.com/ and https://medium.com/@HarvestingHappiness.

How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical framework to approach a post-Mao cultural controversy. As it entered a period of market reform, China did not turn away from revolutionary sentiments. Rather, the post-Mao period experienced a surge of emotionally charged debates about red legacies, ranging from the anguished denunciations of Maoist violence to the elegiac remembrances of socialist egalitarianism. Sentimental Republic chronicles forty years (1978–2018) of bitter cultural wars about the Maoist past. It analyzes how the four major intellectual clusters in contemporary China—liberals, the Left, cultural conservatives, and nationalists—debated Mao's revolutionary legacies in light of the postsocialist transition. Should the Chinese condemn revolutionary violence and “bid farewell to socialism”? Or would a return to revolution foster alternative visions of China's future path? Tu probes the nexus of literature, thought, and memory, bringing to light the dynamic moral sentiments and emotional excess at work in these post-Mao ideological contentions. By analyzing how rival intellectual camps stirred up melancholy, guilt, anger, and resentment, Tu argues that the polemics surrounding the country's past cannot be properly understood without reading the emotional trajectories of the post-Mao intelligentsia. Hang Tu is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore and Deputy Director of the CCKF–NUS Southeast Asia Center for Chinese Studies. A scholar of Chinese literature and thought, his research focuses on the cultural politics of emotion in modern and contemporary China. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Intellectual History, MCLC, and Prism. Camellia (Linh) Pham is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on modern Vietnamese literature, socialist realism, and literary translation across French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. She can be reached at cpham@g.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical framework to approach a post-Mao cultural controversy. As it entered a period of market reform, China did not turn away from revolutionary sentiments. Rather, the post-Mao period experienced a surge of emotionally charged debates about red legacies, ranging from the anguished denunciations of Maoist violence to the elegiac remembrances of socialist egalitarianism. Sentimental Republic chronicles forty years (1978–2018) of bitter cultural wars about the Maoist past. It analyzes how the four major intellectual clusters in contemporary China—liberals, the Left, cultural conservatives, and nationalists—debated Mao's revolutionary legacies in light of the postsocialist transition. Should the Chinese condemn revolutionary violence and “bid farewell to socialism”? Or would a return to revolution foster alternative visions of China's future path? Tu probes the nexus of literature, thought, and memory, bringing to light the dynamic moral sentiments and emotional excess at work in these post-Mao ideological contentions. By analyzing how rival intellectual camps stirred up melancholy, guilt, anger, and resentment, Tu argues that the polemics surrounding the country's past cannot be properly understood without reading the emotional trajectories of the post-Mao intelligentsia. Hang Tu is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore and Deputy Director of the CCKF–NUS Southeast Asia Center for Chinese Studies. A scholar of Chinese literature and thought, his research focuses on the cultural politics of emotion in modern and contemporary China. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Intellectual History, MCLC, and Prism. Camellia (Linh) Pham is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on modern Vietnamese literature, socialist realism, and literary translation across French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. She can be reached at cpham@g.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical framework to approach a post-Mao cultural controversy. As it entered a period of market reform, China did not turn away from revolutionary sentiments. Rather, the post-Mao period experienced a surge of emotionally charged debates about red legacies, ranging from the anguished denunciations of Maoist violence to the elegiac remembrances of socialist egalitarianism. Sentimental Republic chronicles forty years (1978–2018) of bitter cultural wars about the Maoist past. It analyzes how the four major intellectual clusters in contemporary China—liberals, the Left, cultural conservatives, and nationalists—debated Mao's revolutionary legacies in light of the postsocialist transition. Should the Chinese condemn revolutionary violence and “bid farewell to socialism”? Or would a return to revolution foster alternative visions of China's future path? Tu probes the nexus of literature, thought, and memory, bringing to light the dynamic moral sentiments and emotional excess at work in these post-Mao ideological contentions. By analyzing how rival intellectual camps stirred up melancholy, guilt, anger, and resentment, Tu argues that the polemics surrounding the country's past cannot be properly understood without reading the emotional trajectories of the post-Mao intelligentsia. Hang Tu is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore and Deputy Director of the CCKF–NUS Southeast Asia Center for Chinese Studies. A scholar of Chinese literature and thought, his research focuses on the cultural politics of emotion in modern and contemporary China. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Intellectual History, MCLC, and Prism. Camellia (Linh) Pham is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on modern Vietnamese literature, socialist realism, and literary translation across French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. She can be reached at cpham@g.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical framework to approach a post-Mao cultural controversy. As it entered a period of market reform, China did not turn away from revolutionary sentiments. Rather, the post-Mao period experienced a surge of emotionally charged debates about red legacies, ranging from the anguished denunciations of Maoist violence to the elegiac remembrances of socialist egalitarianism. Sentimental Republic chronicles forty years (1978–2018) of bitter cultural wars about the Maoist past. It analyzes how the four major intellectual clusters in contemporary China—liberals, the Left, cultural conservatives, and nationalists—debated Mao's revolutionary legacies in light of the postsocialist transition. Should the Chinese condemn revolutionary violence and “bid farewell to socialism”? Or would a return to revolution foster alternative visions of China's future path? Tu probes the nexus of literature, thought, and memory, bringing to light the dynamic moral sentiments and emotional excess at work in these post-Mao ideological contentions. By analyzing how rival intellectual camps stirred up melancholy, guilt, anger, and resentment, Tu argues that the polemics surrounding the country's past cannot be properly understood without reading the emotional trajectories of the post-Mao intelligentsia. Hang Tu is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore and Deputy Director of the CCKF–NUS Southeast Asia Center for Chinese Studies. A scholar of Chinese literature and thought, his research focuses on the cultural politics of emotion in modern and contemporary China. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Intellectual History, MCLC, and Prism. Camellia (Linh) Pham is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on modern Vietnamese literature, socialist realism, and literary translation across French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and English. She can be reached at cpham@g.harvard.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

We're joined by the four authors of *Digital Theory* — M. Beatrice Fazi, Alexander R. Galloway, Matthew Handelman, and Leif Weatherby — for a roundtable on their new collaborative work.Digital Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) makes a deceptively simple but far-reaching claim: the digital is theoretical. Not in the sense that we theorize about it, but that digitality itself — mediation through discrete units — is a condition for thinking as such.Just to get it out of the way, listeners to the pod know that these four thinkers need no introduction. This is literally the cohort that we've held in our minds over the past few years (there's probably nobody whose shaped our brains as formatively on this subject than Alexander Galloway, whose writing was the subject of Marek's en route masters thesis and the first PDF sent between Marek and Roberto). The conversation opens up a series of productive disagreements within the group. What's the relationship between the digital and computation? For Fazi, the digital is discretization — "the cut" — while computation is systematization, building, constructing. This distinction allows the book to think the digital before and beyond the computer, back to proto-writing tokens and forward to whatever comes next. A major target here is what Galloway calls "analog philosophy," the dominant strain of theory over the last few decades that privileges affect, sensation, intensity, immanence. Deleuze is named directly as the great philosopher of the analog: obsessed with the fold, hostile to structuralism, drawn to "a language of breaths and screams." The authors aren't throwing Deleuze overboard entirely (to them the "Postscript on the Societies of Control" still hits) but they're skeptical that his ontology can account for digital technology as a form of thought. REFERENCES:*Digital Theory* (In Search of Media series), University of Minnesota Press, 2025 https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517920197/digital-theory/M. Beatrice Fazi - *Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics*, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018 https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786606082/Contingent-Computation-Abstraction-Experience-and-Indeterminacy-in-Computational-AestheticsAlexander R. Galloway - *Uncomputable: Play and Politics in the Long Digital Age*, Verso, 2021 https://www.versobooks.com/products/2656-uncomputable - "Golden Age of Analog," *Critical Inquiry* 48, no. 2 (2022) https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/717324 - Galloway's website and blog https://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/Matthew Handelman - *The Mathematical Imagination: On the Origins and Promise of Critical Theory*, Fordham University Press, 2019 https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823283842/the-mathematical-imagination/Leif Weatherby - *Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism*, University of Minnesota Press, 2025 https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/language-machines (our book of the year, for what it's worth) - *Transplanting the Metaphysical Organ: German Romanticism between Leibniz and Marx*, Fordham University Press, 2016 - Digital Theory Lab at NYU https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/leif-allison-reid-weatherby.htmlSome References Discussed:Gilles Deleuze, "Postscript on the Societies of Control" (1992)Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, *Dialectic of Enlightenment*Euclid, *Elements*, Book V (on analog/logos)Jacques Lacan, *Seminar II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis* (on cybernetics)François Laruelle and Alain Badiou, on the genericEve Tuck, "Breaking Up with Deleuze"Hito Steyerl, "How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File" (2013)

One out of every four Americans is a caregiver, caring for partners, parents, grandparents or children. They juggle living their own lives while taking loved ones to the doctor, dispensing medication and even managing insurance. The struggles of these caregivers are often invisible. Many face negative financial impacts, isolation and anxiety. On this episode, we'll hear from caregivers as they share their hardships and hopes. We'll also discuss why America’s caregiving crisis is an urgent public health problem. GUESTS: Laura Mauldin: associate professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut and author of "In Sickness and Health: Love Stories from the Front Line of America’s Caregiving Crisis." Cindy Eastman: author of "True Confessions of An Ambivalent Caregiver" Sue Lloyd-Davies: author of "Pinkie's Turnabout" Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In late 1803, accounts of ghost sightings began to circulate in Hammersmith, England. This led to a tragic event, and a legal case that revealed some limitations in existing English law. Research: “The case of the murdered ghost.” BBC News. January 3, 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3364467.stm “Fears of a Ghost and the Fatal Catastrophe.” The Morning Chronicle. Jan 5, 1804. https://www.newspapers.com/image/394016127/?match=1&terms=Francis%20Smith Feikert-Ahalt, Clare. “The Case of a Ghost Haunted England for Over Two Hundred Years.” Library of Congress Blog. In Custodia Legis. Law Librarians of Congress. Oct. 30, 2015. https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/10/the-case-of-a-ghost-haunted-england-for-over-two-hundred-years/ Castle, Terry. “Phantasmagoria: Spectral Technology and the Metaphorics of Modern Reverie.” Critical Inquiry. Autumn, 1988, Vol. 15, No. 1.pp. 26-61. The University of Chicago Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343603 “FRANCIS SMITH. Killing; murder. 11th January 1804..” Proceedings of the Old Bailey. “The Hammersmith Ghost: London’s Paranormal Murder.” Discovery UK. Jan. 7, 2025. https://www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries/the-hammersmith-ghost-londons-paranormal-murder/ “The Hammersmith Ghost.” Cambridge Chronicle and Journal. Jan. 14, 2804. https://www.newspapers.com/image/975790052/?match=1&terms=Hammersmith%20ghost Kirby, R.S. “Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum: Or, Magazine of Remarkable Characters, Volume 2.” 1804. https://books.google.com/books?id=ggMhkDz-33EC&source=gbs_navlinks_s Medland, W.M. and Charles Weobly. “A Collection of Remarkable and Interesting Criminal Trials, Actions at Law, &c: To which is Prefixed, an Essay on Reprieve and Pardon, and Biographical Sketches of John Lord Eldon, and Mr. Mingay, Volume 2.” Badcock. January 1804. Accessed online: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=c5YuAAAAYAAJ&rdid=book-c5YuAAAAYAAJ&rdot=1 Mitchell, Edwin Valentine, ed. “The Newgate calendar :comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the laws of England.” Garden City Pub. Co. 1926. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006759756 “Murder – Hammersmith Ghost.” The Bury and Norwich Post. Jan. 18, 1804. https://www.newspapers.com/image/394552157/?match=1&terms=Hammersmith%20ghost “The Reath Hammersmith Ghost.: The Bath Journal. Jan. 16, 1804. https://www.newspapers.com/image/975620428/?match=1&terms=Hammersmith%20ghost “Regine v. Gladstone Williams.” Transcript of the Shorthand Notes of Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd., 36-38 Whitefriers Street,Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8BH. Telephone Number: 01-583 7635, Shorthand Writers to the Court. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/1983/4.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On a warm, overcast summer's day of 1901, two English school mistresses strolled through the gardens of Versailles, unaware they were about to step into a defining moment in their lives. One minute in the present and the next in the past, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain claimed to have crossed into a spectral vision of the court of Marie Antoinette. What began as a genteel outing quickly turned uncanny, with silent figures, oppressive stillness, and an inexplicable sense of dread creeping over their heads. Was it imagination, delusion, a ghostly breach in reality or simply a fancy dress party run amok?SOURCES Morison, Elizabeth & Lamont, Frances & (1913) The Adventure. Macmillan & Co. LTD. London, UK. Castle, Terry (1995) The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth Century Culture & The Invention of the Uncanny. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Lamont, Mark (2021) The Mysterious Paths of Versailles: An Investigation of a Journey Back in Time. Independently Published. Castle, Terry (1991) Contagious Folly: An Adventure & It's Sceptics. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Summer, 1991), pp. 741-772. Iremonger, Lucille (1957) The Ghosts of Versailles: Miss Moberly & Miss Jourdain & Their Adventure. Faber & Faber LTD, London, UK. The Daily Telegraph (1911) Books of the Day. The Daily Telegraph, 8 Feb 1911, p14. London, UK. Sidgwick, Henry (1911) Review: An Adventure. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol XXV, July 1911, p353. London, UK. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at ⁠⁠darkhistories.com ⁠⁠ Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: ⁠⁠http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories⁠⁠ or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories⁠⁠ The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: ⁠⁠http://author.to/darkhistories⁠⁠ Dark Histories merch is available here: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3GChjk9⁠⁠ Connect with us on Facebook: ⁠⁠http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast⁠⁠ Or find us on Twitter: ⁠⁠http://twitter.com/darkhistories⁠⁠ & Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/⁠⁠ Or you can contact us directly via email at ⁠⁠contact@darkhistories.com⁠⁠ or join our Discord community: ⁠⁠https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf⁠⁠ The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're going back to 18th century France with Marie Antoinette! Join us as we learn about Marie' and Louis' not great sex life, giving birth in public, Marie's journey to France, scandalous pamphlets, and more! Sources: Cara Mia DiMassa, "That Austrian Woman," Los Angeles Times (2001). https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-21-bk-59630-story.html  Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (audiobook) John Hardman, Marie-Antoinette: The Making of a French Queen (Yale University Press, 2019) https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvnwbx1c  Charlotte Hodgman, "16 things you (probably) didn't know about the rituals behind royal births, from the medieval era to the present day," History Extra, available at https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/royal-births-rituals-queens-lying-in-audiences-holy-girdle/ Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. First Anchor Books, 2001 Leah Price, "Vies Privees et Scadaleuses: Marie-Antoinette and the Public Eye," The Eighteenth Century 33, no.2 (1992): 176-92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41467542  Pierre Saint-Amand, "Terrorizing Marie Antoinette," translated by Jennifer Curtiss Gage, Critical Inquiry 20, no.3 (1994): 379-400. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343862  Nancy Barker, ""Let Them Eat Cake": The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution," The Historian 55, no.4 (1993): 709-24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24448793  Jill H. Casid, "Queer(y)ing Georgic: Utility, Pleasure, and Marie-Antoinette's Ornamented Farm," Eighteenth-Century Studies 30, no.3 (1997): 304-18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30054251 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1993-1212-21?selectedImageId=97366001  Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. First Anchor Books, 2001 https://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/key-dates/first-visit-holy-roman-emperor-joseph-ii-1777 Fogg RN, Boorjian SA. 1122 THE SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION OF LOUIS XVI: A CONSEQUENCE OF ANATOMY, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, OR NAÏVETÉ? Journal of Urology [Internet]. 2010 Apr 1 [cited 2025 Aug 1];183(4S):e434. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2010.02.2319 The Making of Marie Antoinette  Roger Ebert, "Pretty in Pink" (2006) https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/marie-antoinette-2006  Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1158195-marie_antoinette/reviews  Anthony Quinn, The Independent, https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/marie-antoinette-12a-420757.html  Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette_(2006_film)  Kirsten Dunst Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Bring It On' to 'Spider-Man'| Vanity Fair; https://youtu.be/SOzoNKWrsKU?si=pHS4NRPCft0dpLI5  Kirsten Dunst Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Characters; https://youtu.be/pev4mrWUatA?si=NFS4hXZ6JJrLHgWE  Sofia Coppola Shares Her Rich Film Archival | W Magazine; https://youtu.be/u6p_PuXq9hE?si=KjyXP2U_xVb8hOZt 

Fan favorite, James Madden, has a brand new project with his brilliant co-host Jared Zimmerer called The Great Dangerous Books Podcast. Check out this episode to catch the vibe of the show, and if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.  Subscribe to The Great Dangerous Books Podcast Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube In this episode, Jim and Jared discuss the complexities of the UFO phenomenon with special guest Kelly Chase, focusing on Jacques Vallee's influential work 'Messengers of Deception.' They explore themes of manipulation, the unconscious, and the power of images in shaping belief systems. The conversation delves into the psychological impact of UFO experiences, the dangers of ontological shock, and the need for critical thinking in the field of ufology. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of self-awareness and the challenges of integrating extraordinary experiences into one's worldview. TIMESTAMPS 01:28 Introducing Kelly Chase and Her Work 03:09 Exploring Jacques Vallee's 'Messengers of Deception' 05:17 Vallee's Perspective on UFOs and Manipulation 09:47 The Reliability of Jacques Vallee 12:05 The Nature of Reality and Ideological Structures 15:04 The Impact of Ontological Shock 18:45 The Role of the Unconscious in UFO Phenomena 22:08 The Dangers of Manipulation and Belief Systems 27:44 Connecting Modernity and Public Manipulation 32:56 The Internet's Oppenheimer: Valet's Perspective 35:32 The Power of Images and Human Manipulation 39:57 Gnosticism and the Quest for Knowledge 44:05 The Nature of UFO Phenomena and Human Belief 47:35 The Intersection of Science and Mythology 52:11 Critical Inquiry and the Nature of Belief 55:32 The Joy of Inquiry and the Dangers of Ufology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sound-studies

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he's currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing.  In this conversation, we explore:  the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000, the speaking computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey  2001's strong influence on computer science and the cultural reception of computers the weird technology of the first talking computers and their relationship to optical film soundtracks Louis Gerstman, the forgotten innovator who first made an IBM mainframe sing “Daisy Bell.” why the phonemic approach of Stephen Hawking's voice didn't make it into the voice of Siri the analog history of digital computing and the true differences between analog and digital  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology

We spend our 50th episode (the last of this season) with communication theorist Amit Pinchevski. Amit's recent book Echo (MIT Press) explores its topic through mythology, etymology, history, technology, and philosophy. The book challenges the notion that echo is mere repetition. Instead, Pinchevski argues, echo is a generative medium that creatively expresses our relations to others and the world around us. Just as a baby first learns to speak by repeating the sounds of others, a philosophy of echoes reminds us that our own agency and creativity reside in repetitions that respond to the past.  For our Patreon members we the full two-hour conversation with Amit's “What's Good” segment. Join at patreon.com/phantompower.  Amit Pinchevski is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are in theory and philosophy of communication and media, focusing specifically on the ethical aspects of the limits of communication; media witnessing, memory and trauma; and pathologies of communication and their construction. He is the author of By Way of Interruption: Levinas and the Ethics of Communication (Duquesne UP, 2005), Transmitted Wounds: Media and the Mediation of Trauma (Oxford UP, 2019), and Echo (MIT Press, 2022). He is co-editor of Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication (with P. Frosh; Palgrave, 2009) and Ethics of Media (with N. Couldry and M. Madianou; Palgrave, 2013). His work has appeared in academic journals such as Critical Inquiry, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Cultural Critique, Cultural Studies, Public Culture, New Media & Society, and Theory, Culture & Society. Today's show was written and edited by Mack Hagood.  Original music by Graeme Gibson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sound-studies

Steven Swarbrick and Jean-Thomas Tremblay talk about negative life, which names the misalignment of individual and species survival, as a condition of thought and film. In developing this concept, they shed light on the gaps within the rhetoric of entanglement, and push against ethics and politics that insist on the values of human and nonhuman relations. Negative life already inheres in existing social relationships because the world is already broken. Steven and Jean-Thomas critique much of ecocriticism's romantic attachment to contingencies and solutions that would have us ignore this truth. Steven Swarbrick is Associate Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of two books: The Environmental Unconscious: Ecological Poetics from Spenser to Milton (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and The Earth Is Evil (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, “Provocations” series, 2025). He is a coauthor, with Jean-Thomas Tremblay, of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). He has been a guest at High Theory in the past, and his previous episode on ‘The Environmental Unconscious' can be found here. Jean-Thomas Tremblay is Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University, in Toronto. He is the author of Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2022) and, with Steven Swarbrick, a coauthor of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Excerpts from a book-in-progress on climate action, liberal sensemaking, and the "world" concept have appeared in Critical Inquiry and are forthcoming in Representations. Image: © 2025 Saronik Bosu. The silhouette of a forest and that of a cow floating above it, against an orange sky, and a general atmosphere of smoke and haze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Steven Swarbrick and Jean-Thomas Tremblay talk about negative life, which names the misalignment of individual and species survival, as a condition of thought and film. In developing this concept, they shed light on the gaps within the rhetoric of entanglement, and push against ethics and politics that insist on the values of human and nonhuman relations. Negative life already inheres in existing social relationships because the world is already broken. Steven and Jean-Thomas critique much of ecocriticism's romantic attachment to contingencies and solutions that would have us ignore this truth. Steven Swarbrick is Associate Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of two books: The Environmental Unconscious: Ecological Poetics from Spenser to Milton (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and The Earth Is Evil (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, “Provocations” series, 2025). He is a coauthor, with Jean-Thomas Tremblay, of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). He has been a guest at High Theory in the past, and his previous episode on ‘The Environmental Unconscious' can be found here. Jean-Thomas Tremblay is Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University, in Toronto. He is the author of Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2022) and, with Steven Swarbrick, a coauthor of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Excerpts from a book-in-progress on climate action, liberal sensemaking, and the "world" concept have appeared in Critical Inquiry and are forthcoming in Representations. Image: © 2025 Saronik Bosu. The silhouette of a forest and that of a cow floating above it, against an orange sky, and a general atmosphere of smoke and haze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Steven Swarbrick and Jean-Thomas Tremblay talk about negative life, which names the misalignment of individual and species survival, as a condition of thought and film. In developing this concept, they shed light on the gaps within the rhetoric of entanglement, and push against ethics and politics that insist on the values of human and nonhuman relations. Negative life already inheres in existing social relationships because the world is already broken. Steven and Jean-Thomas critique much of ecocriticism's romantic attachment to contingencies and solutions that would have us ignore this truth. Steven Swarbrick is Associate Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of two books: The Environmental Unconscious: Ecological Poetics from Spenser to Milton (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and The Earth Is Evil (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, “Provocations” series, 2025). He is a coauthor, with Jean-Thomas Tremblay, of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). He has been a guest at High Theory in the past, and his previous episode on ‘The Environmental Unconscious' can be found here. Jean-Thomas Tremblay is Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University, in Toronto. He is the author of Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2022) and, with Steven Swarbrick, a coauthor of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Excerpts from a book-in-progress on climate action, liberal sensemaking, and the "world" concept have appeared in Critical Inquiry and are forthcoming in Representations. Image: © 2025 Saronik Bosu. The silhouette of a forest and that of a cow floating above it, against an orange sky, and a general atmosphere of smoke and haze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Steven Swarbrick and Jean-Thomas Tremblay talk about negative life, which names the misalignment of individual and species survival, as a condition of thought and film. In developing this concept, they shed light on the gaps within the rhetoric of entanglement, and push against ethics and politics that insist on the values of human and nonhuman relations. Negative life already inheres in existing social relationships because the world is already broken. Steven and Jean-Thomas critique much of ecocriticism's romantic attachment to contingencies and solutions that would have us ignore this truth. Steven Swarbrick is Associate Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of two books: The Environmental Unconscious: Ecological Poetics from Spenser to Milton (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and The Earth Is Evil (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press, “Provocations” series, 2025). He is a coauthor, with Jean-Thomas Tremblay, of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). He has been a guest at High Theory in the past, and his previous episode on ‘The Environmental Unconscious' can be found here. Jean-Thomas Tremblay is Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities and Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Political Thought at York University, in Toronto. He is the author of Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2022) and, with Steven Swarbrick, a coauthor of Negative Life: The Cinema of Extinction (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Excerpts from a book-in-progress on climate action, liberal sensemaking, and the "world" concept have appeared in Critical Inquiry and are forthcoming in Representations. Image: © 2025 Saronik Bosu. The silhouette of a forest and that of a cow floating above it, against an orange sky, and a general atmosphere of smoke and haze. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

On this episode of The Zach Show, Michael Clune discusses his eleven-year long year battle with heroin use, his double life between the streets of Baltimore and the college classroom, the "magic" of the first time, which films depict heroin addiction most realistically, good times with 'Fun Boy,' the long road of recovery, advice for addicts, standup comedy, the realities of the fentanyl crisis, and more.  Guest bio: Michael Clune is the award-winning author of 'White Out: The Secret Life Of Heroin' and a Professor of Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. Michael's essays have appeared in Harper's—where he is a contributing editor—Critical Inquiry, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The Atlantic, Best American Essays, PMLA, and elsewhere. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim and Mellon Foundations, and his books have appeared on “best of the year” lists from The New Yorker, NPR, and elsewhere.  SUPPORT THE AUXORO PODCAST BY SUBSCRIBING TO AUXORO PREMIUM (BONUS EPISODES & EXCLUSIVE CONTENT): https://auxoro.supercast.com/ MICHAEL CLUNE LINKS:White Out - The Secret Life Of Heroin: https://amzn.to/3Okpqad Bio: https://english.case.edu/faculty/michael-clune/Website: https://www.michaelwclune.com/Publications: https://www.michaelwclune.com/gamelife THE AUXORO PODCAST LINKS: Apple: https://apple.co/3B4fYjuSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sPOvercast: https://bit.ly/3rgw70DYoutube: https://bit.ly/3lTpJdjAUXORO Premium: https://auxoro.supercast.com/Website: https://www.auxoro.com/ AUXORO SOCIAL LINKS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auxoroYouTube: https://bit.ly/3CLjEqFFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/auxoromagNewsletter: https://www.auxoro.com/thesourceYouTube: https://bit.ly/3CLjEqF To support the show, please leave a review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This nudges the algorithm to show The AUXORO Podcast to more new listeners and is the best way to help the show grow. It takes 30 seconds and the importance of getting good reviews cannot be overstated.  Thank you for your support: Review us on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/458nbhaReview us on Spotify: https://bit.ly/43ZLrAt 

J.J. and Dr. Sarah Hammerschlag encounter a phenomenal high-school principle and genius: Emmanuel Levinas. Follow us on Twitter (X) @JewishIdeas_Pod to converse with Other listeners. Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice!We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.orgFor more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsSarah Hammerschlag is the John Nuveen Professor of Religion and Literature, Philosophy of Religions and History of Judaism at the University of Chicago. Sheis a scholar in the area of Religion and Literature. Her research thus far has focused on the position of Judaism in the post-World War II French intellectual scene, a field that puts her at the crossroads of numerous disciplines and scholarly approaches including philosophy, literary studies, and intellectual history. She is the author of The Figural Jew: Politics and Identity in Postwar French Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2010) and Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida and the Literary Afterlife of Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016) and the editor of Modern French Jewish Thought: Writings on Religion and Politics (Brandeis University Press, 2018). The Figural Jew received an Honorable Mention for the 2012 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, given by the Association of Jewish Scholars, and was a finalist for the AAR's Best First Book in the History of Religions in 2011. She has written essays on Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot which have appeared in Critical Inquiry, Jewish Quarterly Review and Shofar, among other places. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled “Sowers and Sages: The Renaissance of Judaism in Postwar Paris. Her most recent book is Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature and Political Imagination (2021), co-written with Constance Furey and Amy Hollywood. 

Headlines for September 17, 2024; U.N. Experts Accuse Israel of “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza & Demand End to Western Complicity; “Erasing History”: Yale Prof. Jason Stanley on Why Fascists Attack Education & Critical Inquiry; “Borderland: The Line Within”: New Film on Who Profits from Deportations & Border-Industrial Complex

Headlines for September 17, 2024; U.N. Experts Accuse Israel of “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza & Demand End to Western Complicity; “Erasing History”: Yale Prof. Jason Stanley on Why Fascists Attack Education & Critical Inquiry; “Borderland: The Line Within”: New Film on Who Profits from Deportations & Border-Industrial Complex

“People will claim that something is rigorous because it's by an authority figure or it's written in a book. But anyone can write a book.” We often think the solution to misinformation is fact checking. But just checking facts is not enough. Even if a fact is 100% accurate, it could still be misleading – it could be a large-scale correlation when there's no causation. The solution to misinformation is not obtaining a PhD in statistics, London Business School professor Alex Edmans and author of “May Contain Lies” argues. We often already possess the discerning skills to distinguish truth within ourselves. Misinformation is so prevalent today because we suffer from confirmation bias, or the idea that we have a certain view of the world and we will latch onto any piece of evidence that supports our viewpoint. When we inject skepticism into our thought process, we can overcome these biases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more. https://members.bigthink.com/?utm_sou... ►Get Big Think+ for Business Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business. https://bigthink.com/plus/great-leade... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Alex Edmans: Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex graduated from Oxford University and then worked for Morgan Stanley in investment banking (London) and fixed income sales and trading (New York). After a PhD in Finance from MIT Sloan as a Fulbright Scholar, he joined Wharton in 2007 and was tenured in 2013 shortly before moving to LBS. Alex's research interests are in corporate finance, responsible business and behavioural finance. He is a Director of the American Finance Association; Vice President of the Western Finance Association; Fellow, Director, and Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Financial Management Association; Fellow of the British Academy; and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. From 2017-2022 he was Managing Editor of the Review of Finance, the leading academic finance journal in Europe. Alex has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, presented to the World Bank Board of Directors as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series, and given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World and the TEDx talks The Pie-Growing Mindset and The Social Responsibility of Business with a combined 2.8 million views. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and World Economic Forum and been interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for a fascinating journey through the intersection of Jewish history, copyright law, and community politics in our latest episode, "Printing Press Politics: Investigating the Mishneh Torah Copyright Controversy". Dr. Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg, a renowned expert in Jewish studies, joins us to delve into the contentious debate surrounding the reprinting of Maimonides' monumental work, the Mishneh Torah - as addressed by the Rema (responsum no. 10). From the printing presses of 16th-century Italy to modern-day copyright disputes, we explore how this controversy reflects deeper tensions between ownership, accessibility, and the public good. With Dr. Morsel-Eisenberg's insightful guidance, we uncover the complex dynamics shaping the future of Jewish publishing and the dissemination of Torah knowledge. Bio: Dr. Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg is assistant professor of Jewish History at NYU's Skirball Department for Hebrew and Judaic Studies. She specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern Ashkenaz, especially the history of halakha, and is interested in how knowledge, law, and history interact. Dr. Morsel-Eisenberg has held fellowships at the Leo Baeck Institute, the Center for Jewish History, and Harvard. She has written numerous articles on early modern halakha and the transmission of knowledge in academic journals, including the Journal for the History of Ideas, AJS Review, Diné Israel and Critical Inquiry, as well as more popular outlets such as Tablet magazine and the Lehrhaus. Starting in Spring 2025, Dr. Morsel-Eisenberg will be teaching at Tel Aviv University. To view the Mishneh Torah 1550 Justiniani Title Page referenced in the episode, please click here.

In episode 203, Dan and Michael chat with Jenni Conrad and Jenni Gallagher about two articles—one with Wendy Chan published in Theory & Research in Social Education, “Getting critical with compelling questions: Shifts in elementary teacher candidates' curriculum planning from inquiry to critical inquiry” and another published in Social Education title, “Designing Questions for Critical Inquiry.”

George Washington Williams was one of the first people to publicly describe the atrocities being carried out in the Congo Free State under King Leopold II of Belgium. But so much happened in his life before that. Research: Berry, Dorothy. “George Washington Williams' History of the Negro Race in America (1882–83).” The Public Domain Review. 9/12/2023. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/history-of-the-negro-race-in-america/ BlackPast, B. (2009, August 20). (1890) George Washington Williams's Open Letter to King Leopold on the Congo. BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/primary-documents-global-african-history/george-washington-williams-open-letter-king-leopold-congo-1890/ Book, Todd. “What Tarzan Taught Me about Ohio History.” 10/1/2017. https://www.ohiobar.org/member-tools-benefits/practice-resources/practice-library-search/practice-library/2017-ohio-lawyer/what-tarzan-taught-me-about-ohio-history/ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "John Hope Franklin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hope-Franklin. Accessed 31 January 2024. Elnaiem, Mohammed. “George Washington Williams and the Origins of Anti-Imperialism.” JSTOR Daily. 6/10/2021. https://daily.jstor.org/george-washington-williams-and-the-origins-of-anti-imperialism/ Franklin, John Hope. "Williams, George Washington." Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, edited by Colin A. Palmer, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 2303-2304. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3444701308/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=f3d8c89e. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024. Franklin, John Hope. “Afro-American Biography: The Case of George Washington Williams.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , Jun. 18, 1979. https://www.jstor.org/stable/986218 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams and the Beginnings of Afro-American Historiography.” Critical Inquiry , Summer, 1978, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Summer, 1978). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1342950 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams, Historian.” The Journal of Negro History , Jan., 1946, Vol. 31, No. 1. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2714968 Franklin, John Hope. “George Washington Williams: A Biography.” University of Chicago Press. 1985. "George Washington Williams." Notable Black American Men, Book II, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K1622000481/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=718fd3c3. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024. Hawkins, Hunt. “Conrad and Congolese Exploitation.” Conradiana , 1981, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1981). https://www.jstor.org/stable/24634105 John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. “Dr. Franklin & Lea Fridman: George Washington Williams.” Via YouTube. 10/10/2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8WC5l2unNA McConarty, Colin. “George Washington Williams: A Historian Ahead of His Time.” We're History. February 26, 2016. https://werehistory.org/williams/ O'Reilly, Ted. “In Search of George Washington Williams, Historian.” New York Historical Society Museum and Library.” 2/24/2021. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/in-search-of-george-washington-williams-historian O'Connor, A. (2008, January 23). George Washington Williams (1849-1891). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/williams-george-washington-1849-1891/ Ohio Statehouse. “George Washington Williams.” https://www.ohiostatehouse.org/museum/george-washington-williams-room/george-washington-williams Simmons, Willam J. and Henry McNeal Turner. “Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising.” Geo. M. Rewell & Company, 1887. https://books.google.com/books?id=2QUJ419VR4AC& See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Creative storytelling is the beating heart of Darwin's science. All of Darwin's writings drew on information gleaned from a worldwide network of scientific research and correspondence, but they hinge on moments in which Darwin asks his reader to imagine how specific patterns came to be over time, spinning yarns filled with protagonists and antagonists, crises, triumphs, and tragedies. His fictions also forged striking new possibilities for the interpretation of human societies and their relation to natural environments. After Darwin: Literature, Theory, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge UP, 2022) gathers an international roster of scholars to ask what Darwin's writing offers future of literary scholarship and critical theory, as well as allied fields like history, art history, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, the history of race, aesthetics, and ethics. It speaks to anyone interested in the impact of Darwin on the humanities, including literary scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in Darwin's continuing influence. • Provides an interdisciplinary lens on the philosophy and writing of Charles Darwin • Emphasizes Darwin as a thinker and a humanist, showing readers Darwin's wider-ranging and ongoing impact in various fields of social, philosophical, and aesthetic thought • Looks beyond Darwin's theory of natural selection to focus on his contributions to theories of race and gender, aesthetics, ecology, animal studies, environmentalism, and politics Devin Griffiths is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. His book, The Age of Analogy (2016) was a finalist for the BARS, BSLS, and NVSA book prizes. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, Victorian Studies, ELH, the History of Humanities, and Book History. He's now working on a study of ecocriticism and the energy humanities. Deanna Kreisel is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Economic Woman: Demand, Gender, and Narrative Closure in Eliot and Hardy, and has published articles in PMLA, Representations, ELH, Novel, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth Century Literature, and elsewhere. Her current book project is on utopia and sustainability in Victorian culture. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Creative storytelling is the beating heart of Darwin's science. All of Darwin's writings drew on information gleaned from a worldwide network of scientific research and correspondence, but they hinge on moments in which Darwin asks his reader to imagine how specific patterns came to be over time, spinning yarns filled with protagonists and antagonists, crises, triumphs, and tragedies. His fictions also forged striking new possibilities for the interpretation of human societies and their relation to natural environments. After Darwin: Literature, Theory, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge UP, 2022) gathers an international roster of scholars to ask what Darwin's writing offers future of literary scholarship and critical theory, as well as allied fields like history, art history, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, the history of race, aesthetics, and ethics. It speaks to anyone interested in the impact of Darwin on the humanities, including literary scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in Darwin's continuing influence. • Provides an interdisciplinary lens on the philosophy and writing of Charles Darwin • Emphasizes Darwin as a thinker and a humanist, showing readers Darwin's wider-ranging and ongoing impact in various fields of social, philosophical, and aesthetic thought • Looks beyond Darwin's theory of natural selection to focus on his contributions to theories of race and gender, aesthetics, ecology, animal studies, environmentalism, and politics Devin Griffiths is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. His book, The Age of Analogy (2016) was a finalist for the BARS, BSLS, and NVSA book prizes. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, Victorian Studies, ELH, the History of Humanities, and Book History. He's now working on a study of ecocriticism and the energy humanities. Deanna Kreisel is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Economic Woman: Demand, Gender, and Narrative Closure in Eliot and Hardy, and has published articles in PMLA, Representations, ELH, Novel, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth Century Literature, and elsewhere. Her current book project is on utopia and sustainability in Victorian culture. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Creative storytelling is the beating heart of Darwin's science. All of Darwin's writings drew on information gleaned from a worldwide network of scientific research and correspondence, but they hinge on moments in which Darwin asks his reader to imagine how specific patterns came to be over time, spinning yarns filled with protagonists and antagonists, crises, triumphs, and tragedies. His fictions also forged striking new possibilities for the interpretation of human societies and their relation to natural environments. After Darwin: Literature, Theory, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge UP, 2022) gathers an international roster of scholars to ask what Darwin's writing offers future of literary scholarship and critical theory, as well as allied fields like history, art history, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, the history of race, aesthetics, and ethics. It speaks to anyone interested in the impact of Darwin on the humanities, including literary scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers interested in Darwin's continuing influence. • Provides an interdisciplinary lens on the philosophy and writing of Charles Darwin • Emphasizes Darwin as a thinker and a humanist, showing readers Darwin's wider-ranging and ongoing impact in various fields of social, philosophical, and aesthetic thought • Looks beyond Darwin's theory of natural selection to focus on his contributions to theories of race and gender, aesthetics, ecology, animal studies, environmentalism, and politics Devin Griffiths is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. His book, The Age of Analogy (2016) was a finalist for the BARS, BSLS, and NVSA book prizes. His work has appeared in Critical Inquiry, Victorian Studies, ELH, the History of Humanities, and Book History. He's now working on a study of ecocriticism and the energy humanities. Deanna Kreisel is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Economic Woman: Demand, Gender, and Narrative Closure in Eliot and Hardy, and has published articles in PMLA, Representations, ELH, Novel, Victorian Studies, Nineteenth Century Literature, and elsewhere. Her current book project is on utopia and sustainability in Victorian culture. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory